Patients want to take part in research: In June 2011 an Ipsos Mori poll commissioned by AMRC revealed that 97% of the public believe it's important for the NHS to support research and that 72% would like to be offered opportunities to be involved in trials of new medicines or treatments if they suffered from a health condition that affects their day-to-day life.

The life-sciences industry is one of our biggest allies: "Opening-up" the NHS data – without compromising patient confidentiality – to researchers would put the UK in the vanguard as a global clinical research destination and work is already underway on sophisticated IT systems to join NHS databases together and make them accessible as a research resource.

Learning from elsewhere: We must not forget that patients may know as much as the clinical staff about their condition and we need to find ways to allow patients' own data to be valued. There is a lot of great work being done across the country, and we need to share this work, collaborate and learn lessons.

Getting rid of red tape: Of course there need to be appropriate safeguards in place to ensure patient confidentiality, but patients overwhelmingly tell us that they would be happy for their anonymised data to be used for research. As one cancer patient said to me: "Giving my data anonymously is the most painless way I can help others get better." So we need to get the systems in place to allow this to happen.

Uses of data: The NHS needs to process data for a number of different purposes – for commissioning, for audit, for public health, to monitor the spread of infectious disease and for research purposes. All these uses have the same underlying purpose: to improve the quality of care and treatment, both for the individual patient and for the rest of the population

The patient can be overlooked: The motivation behind the myhealthlocker project is to empower patients by giving them better access to their health information and to provide an environment where they can contribute to their healthcare experience.

Myhealthlocker: The project allows service users access to parts of both their mental health record and also their GP record. The patient reported outcome measures are fed back to the Maudsley's medical record system and anonymised, and so can be made available for research in the trust's system.

About the project: CPRD will be making anonymised data available for approved research projects. This will be linked data where data from different datasets/parts of the NHS will add additional detail that will help the research outcomes.

Eliminating suspicion: This online debate is just one of many ways we want to ensure patients know how their anonymised data may be used for approved research projects and how their anonymised data is protected by a comprehensive data stewardship programme at all stages in the process from removal from an NHS IT system to the research use.

Boundaries of consent: This online debate is just one of many ways we want to ensure that patients know how their anonymised data may be used for approved research projects and how their anonymised data is protected by a comprehensive data stewardship programme at all stages in the process from removal from an NHS IT system to the research use.

Centralised health data in the NHS: One of the many great things about the NHS and the way it is organised is its ability to generate centralised health data. This is an invaluable resource for researchers looking at large-scale patterns of care, as opposed to specific clinical trials.

Peter Knight is deputy director of research and development and head of research information and intelligence at the Department of Health

Uses of anonymous data: A recent example is the assessment of metal-on-metal hips where the regulator was able to use linked anonymised data sets to assess the safety implications for this type of implant. Without this type of linked anonymised data, these assessments will take longer and may not be as comprehensive.

The NHS constitution: The NHS constitution consultation covers being informed about the use of your data. Security and confidentiality of patient data is absolute for the NHS.

You can read all of the comments made in the discussion in full online here.

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